I've been inspired lately by reading $5 Dinner Mom and Family Feasts for $75, and have started to trim down our grocery bills. Meat is definitely the biggest expense on the shopping list, and I'm realizing that our family of four doesn't need to be eating quite as much as we do. I usually plop 4 chicken breast halves into the slow cooker without thinking, but for this dish I used 3.

Guess what? We still were full, and there was still some leftover for Adam to take to work the next day for lunch. Go figure. We ate our chicken tucked into corn tortillas and had a side of basmati rice to soak up the yummy juices.

I used a 4 quart slow cooker. Put the chicken into the bottom of the cooker, and add the bell peppers and the whole can of chiles. Add basil, onion, salt, and pepper. Stir a bit to combine. Pour in the 1/4 cup of water. Cover and cook on low for about 6 hours, or on high for 3-4.

Before serving, use tongs to remove the chicken, and set aside. Using an immersible blender, blend the peppers and sauce left at the bottom of the slow cooker. If you don't have an immersible blender, carefully(!) pour the slow cooker contents into a traditional stand blender and pulse until fully combined. Pour back into the cooker.

Stir in sour cream until melted. If you don't have sour cream in the house, plain yogurt or cream cheese would work just fine---this is only to thicken the sauce a bit and to mellow out the peppers and chile flavor.

Slice chicken, and return to the cooker. Set to high for 20-30 minutes, or until your dinner is fully hot. Serve the meat in corn tortillas, or over rice.

Or both!

The Verdict.

I've gone on the record saying I don't like green peppers. I really don't---they remind me of soggy cafeteria pizza. But they are MUCH less expensive than red, yellow, or orange peppers, and since the flavor is so pronounced a little goes a long way. Adam and the kids don't seem to mind the flavor, and the kids actually eat raw green pepper dipped in ranch, something I would never do. So I took one for the team.

I'm happy to report that I really liked the flavor when cooked like this, and when paired with the chiles. The chicken turned green, which the kids thought was neat. They happily ate their chicken over rice with a ladle full of sauce, but ate their corn tortilla as a quesadilla.

I don't like green peppers that much either but, like you, I'm realizing that the cheap factor may be worth it.

I would say cost was about 50% of the reason why I decided to cut back on mine and my husband's meat consumption. It is so, so expensive and while we may not have necessarily saved money (we're on a tight weekly grocery budget so we spend what we have budgeted), we have definitely had more money for fresh fruits and vegetables.

That sounds yummy... I wonder how well it would work with white beans or tofu for the Vegeterian in my life. Ohh some chunks of paneer cheese might be nice too...

We are sweet on any kind of bell pepper in this house, and I have at least 5 bags of frozen ones from the summer time harvest.

At Thanksgiving my mother who's a bit on the picky side with food looked at me, happily scooping hummus with bell pepper and said "You can eat those? Raw like that?" I tried to explain it's not the same as a hot pepper, but I'm not sure she gets it.

This sounds so tasty I'm going to have to try this out. Another crafty way to stretch the chicken is to rip it into shredded chicken with two forks instead of chopping it with a knife. It makes for more slivers of chicken and possibly more left overs since the bites will be smaller. Thank you for this great recipe! ox

Your cookbook is my absolute favorite and I have probably over 200 in my collection. Last night we had your chicken masala. Your Indian recipes are the most authentic Indian recipes that I've ever found in a crockpot cookbook. Please consider trying to make chicken korma. I had it at a restaurant and it was sooo good. I'd love a crockpot recipe for it.

You may want to try Italian cubanelle (not sure of the spelling but they are longer and lighter in color than your run of the mill green bell pepper). The flavor is much more milder. I personally prefer red ones too.

Hi! I never use as much meat as you call for in your recipes. I usually halve the amount of beef or pork and for chicken recipes, I use 3 bone-in thighs or 4 drumsticks. It seems to be plenty for dinner for 3 adults and 1-2 lunches. Between a celiac, a diabetic, (so no real cheap carbs) and all of us being meat eaters, this helps our budget quite a bit.

this looks so yummy! I am enjoying your cookbook and have about 5 recipes bookmared to try 1st. I am even giving a copy to my daughter for Christmas. She is not gluten intolerant, but has excluded it from her diet after living with a roommate who could not eat it. I'm gifting your cookbook and The Pioneer Woman Cooks to my husband and son. My son just told me my meals were 'boring'! Not a good idea to insult the cook!

I hope you don't mind, Stephanie, but I'd like to give a shout out to Anonymous and BEG for some advice on cooking for a diabetic!!! If there are ANY blogs or sites or anything you've found helpful, and if you wouldn't mind, I'd love to hear about them. Particularly one similar to this, where someone has in fact tested the recipes-reading some recipes I get the feeling they were created by doctors rather than by cooks, if you know what I mean. There's no imagination or flair to them.

My husband was just diagnosed with diabetes early last week, and I'm really floundering in the dark here-so far I'm doing half the plate with veggies and a dab of whole grain carbs and a bit of meat, and it's working okay, but I really could use more to go on. Thanks in advance for any help you can provide!

I did the same thing with our meat consumption. I buy in bulk, chicken breasts or ground turkey. Then I come home and s weigh it and separate it into baggies for freezing. I used to keep 2 lbs. of chicken for our family but now I'm using only 1 1/2 lbs. and it's plenty. Ground turkey, I cut down on too and no one seemed to notice.

Funny, the green chicken doesn't look appealing at ALL but I think I'll try it though, we love peppers and chiles. Thanks for the recipe!

I'm so sorry to hear about your husband's diagnosis. I don't know of any diabetic bloggers off-hand, but I do know that Kalyn from Kalyn's Kitchen cooks South Beach Diet style, and may be of some help. Elana, from Elana's Pantry, is gluten free, but also stays away from most refined sugar (she cooks with agave nectar) and may be of some help.

I asked on Twitter if anyone knew of any diabetic recipe sites/bloggers, and I didn't get much help, except one lady recommended Patti Labelle's cookbook. She is evidently the spokesperson for the American Diabetic Association, too. Amazon link to Patti's cookbook.

I'm so sorry to not be of more help, but if anything comes my way, I'll forward it on to you.

Thanks Stephanie! I'm still planning to check those links after things calm down a bit here (school choir program tomorrow, baking bread for teacher gifts today, office party saturday, running around like my pants are on fire in general). I was just wondering if perhaps anonymous had found some other sources, because you just can't have too much information! LOL!

I make something very similiar to this using Goya's Recaito sauce. We also sop it up with rice and corn torillas. Not sure about Goya and gluten, but the Recaito is onions, garlic, green peppers and cilantro and has that whole "open bottle, dump in, walk away" thing going! :) The cilantro ties it all together for me!

Made this tonight and the family loved it! I had mine over quinoa and my 3 teenagers ate in on top of whole wheat egg noodles. Wasn't sure if to drain the canned chilis -- I didn't and it worked out fine. I didn't add the sour cream but I did food process the pepper mixture. This is a real keeper to add to the rotation!

Schmoomom, I use David Mendoza's site www.mendosa.com/ and Janet Ruhl's site www.phlaunt.com/diabetes/index.php for diabetes information, also one other site /www.healthcentral.com/diabetes is a good site. Basically the ADA diet DOES NOT work for the average diabetic. Diabetics are carb sensitive. He will want to learn to eat to his meter and exercise plan.

Sorry Stephanie, for taking over your comments, but I know how frustrating it is knowing what the ADA, the doctor, and dietician are telling you and it not working, then not knowing where to find answers. I love your site and many of your meals work in my diet plan. Judy

Kudos for reducing meat in your meal plans. I have been known to use only one pound of ground beef for my family of six or four chicken legs and thighs. I try to use less but when my husband cooks he thinks we need two pounds of ground beef and basically doubles everything! It makes me sooo mad. I'm trying to educate him that less is more. I only use green peppers due to the cost issue except I like to roast them and remove the skins then freeze them. I have a terrific mexican chicken dish that uses green peppers and my kids gobble that down thinking they are beans! This dish I use regular sliced green peppers without the roasting. I encourage you to give us some recipes that are good, cheap, and uses stuff you don't have to run out and buy as I suspect many of us are on a very tight budget.

I feel the same way about green peppers - they're okay, but I don't love them. I don't know that this is true where you live, but I can find 3-packs of "rainbow peppers" (aka one red, one yellow and one orange) pretty much year round at my regular grocery store for $3.99 which is usually the regular price per pound for single peppers, and this is 3 at that price. Might be worth a look next time you're at the market to see if your store has that deal, too.

This looks DELISH! My sister just turned me on to your blog and I have shared it with so many friends! My slow cooker has become my best friend and has cut down our grocery expenses too as you can eat it for more than one meal!!! LOVE LOVE LOVE YOUR BLOG!!!!

Not quite sure what I think about green chicken but we do love green peppers! :>) I linked to this on my weekly roundup, post is here. (I used to not care for green peppers too much but I've found the key is to keep them in small pieces. Even when I make "stuffed green peppers", I either layer diced peppers on the bottom of the casserole dish or just toss them in to cook with the rice. Much preferred!

My family isn't big fans of green peppers. We do enjoy red peppers. And I'll substitute them in a recipe anytime.We've had to cut down on our grocery bill out of necessity. It's been a learning process, with lots of mistakes and lots of help. Even our teen has learned to look for weekly grocery sales and food clearances at the grocery store.

Judy you hit the nail on the head there-the ADA seems to have HUGE amounts of carbs and, well, the stupid carbs are what drive up his blood sugar! I am getting NOWHERE with finding out what range of carbs he is allowed to ingest on a daily basis. If I just had a number to shoot for I could do this, but I'm upstream without a paddle and my boat has sprung a leak-in other words, gettin' nowhere fast! LOL!

Thanks Judy, that really helps! Another reader sent me a link, which linked to another site, of diabetics who blog what they eat AND HOW MANY CARBS IT HAS!!!! They also post what it does to their meter readings, which is also a huge help. We've managed to keep him under 140 for several days now, with a gradual downward trend so we're hoping for even more improvement as we get a handle on this.

Steph-just so you know, many of your meals are GREAT for diabetics because they're low in "bad" carbs, low in fat, have lots of veggies, etc. Because you don't use wheat products, many of your meals have less overall carbs than their processed-wheat-centric counterparts. I can't use them all, but a suprising number of them are absolutely fine, which tickles me pink!

A friend recommended this blog today and I am excited to peruse your site. We are gluten-free in our family. Like you, we don't feel it changes the way we eat terribly much, we just feel SO much better. My husband had a bad stomach for 17 years. We tried everything, until one day I began reading about gluten. I convinced him (it took awhile) to try to go gluten-free. The turnaround was amazing and quick! He definitely does not miss the gluten!

Excellent! The substitutions: I used peppers from the garden of varying degrees of heat (jalapeno, anaheim, etc) All peppers had already turned red. No can chilies, and I added extra water (3/4 cup total) to make up the difference. Also, I did not blend the peppers, so we had chunks. My fear with going "all garden" was that the meal would be too hot spice-wise, the sour cream helped moderate this concern (I probably added too much, but the meal tasted great!)

This was a huge hit with my kids! I used three chicken breasts and had plenty to feed my family of six.

I squeezed some lime juice on the chicken and used fresh green bell peppers and poblanos. This had the right amount of heat and smelled amazing as it cooked. I didn't have any sour cream and I doubt I'll add it the next time. A definite addition to our meal reptoire!

woohoo, I got your slowcooker recipe book for christmas! Have already earmarked a few I want to try don't remember seeing on your blog. I love that all your recipes are gluten-free, it's the way to be for me!Hope the new year brings happy healthy baby for you, congrats!Stephanie ~ GF 8/05

This was REALLY yummy. We ate our over rice and my husband and I added a couple of dashes of Tabasco Green Pepper Sauce to ours because we like a little heat. Our daughter (17 months) however loved it just the way it is.

I also don't love green peppers so I was surprised to find that I loved this.

THis was soooooooo good!!!! the corn tortillas did not work for us but over rice is wonderful and the best part is, my husband liked it! He's a bit picky so I was pleased, gluten free and I get to make it again!!! :) btw, I only had 2 chicken breasts and it was enough to feed hubby, me, three kids and I had leftovers the next day. Not sure how I did that.

I love this one. It has become one of my family favorites. We do like it a little hotter than the original. I always use poblano peppers instead of bell peppers and medium chilies instead of mild...and than I shred the chicken. It is always SOOO GOOD!!!!

I hate green peppers, so I used another's suggestion of using tomatillos and it was really good! I doubled the recipe - making dinner for another family as well, and added fresh onion, cilantro, lime juice and garlic. We served it over basmati rice and corn chips - super yummy!! Thanks for the recipe!!

I wasn't sure about this when it was cooking as it smelled a little weird. But Oh MY GOODNESS ... my toddlers ate it all up (and they rarely eat anything!) I used two fresh peppers from my garden, too. It was so exciting! Thanks so much. This definitely is going in the menu rotation. jpm

Because I want our family to eat organic, grass fed and no-antibiotic/hormone meat... it's expensive! I've been coming to your blog quite often these days for interesting chicken dishes I can make in my crockpot. I now buy one whole chicken a week, and then use absolutely every little part of it - I can usually make 12-15 meals out of it, due to my crockpot and great recipes like the ones on this blog!

Thanks so much for making it easier to feed my family the healthiest food possible, on a budget and without a huge hassle in the kitchen.

I made this tonight, and it was a hit with my family. I had only a little bit of green pepper but plenty of orange and yellow, so I used all three. The only thing I didn't like was having to pour out the sauce to puree it. I guess that's a good reason for me to buy myself an immersion blender! Instead of sour cream, I threw in a block of low-fat cream cheese. We ate this as quesadillas and have enough left over to eat with rice tomorrow night. Thanks!

I just tried this tonight. I added several cloves of garlic, and subbed two hot green cherry peppers and a few handfuls of roasted red pepper strips for the green chiles. Cooked it on high in my 6-qt Rival for a little over three hours. (I also blended up the peppers in my little Cuisinart beforehand, rather than using an immersion blender after the fact. Because as much as I love my immersion blender, it's too much of a pain to clean.)

It smells WONDERFUL, but I think it tastes a little bit bland. It's good with salsa but if I hadn't been lazy I probably would have topped it off with some cheddar and a few other things. I don't know what I'd do differently - maybe add more salt and more garlic? I haven't had canned green chiles since I was a kid, but I don't recall them having a super-strong flavor...but maybe that's what was missing?

Overall it was a satisfactory dinner and a great way to use up green peppers, but I don't really see making it again.

Subsituted poblanos and jalepenos for the green peppers. Also used chicken broth instead of water. Added cumin at the end and ended up shredding the chicken. We were very happy with the results! Great recipe!!

AYearofSlowCooking.com and StephanieODea.com are participants in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.